mediterranean

«mediterranean» in Mova's school dictionary: the large sea between southern Europe, North Africa and… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (Mediterranean); noun (the Mediterranean)

meaning for a pupil

1) The Mediterranean (Sea) is the large sea between southern Europe, North Africa and western Asia. tree →

2) Mediterranean means of or near this sea: Mediterranean countries include Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. tree →

3) A Mediterranean climate has hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters, found around this sea and in places like California and parts of Australia. tree →

sense in the lessons

In geography lessons pupils locate the Mediterranean on maps, learn about its climate, tourist beaches and the plants that grow there (olives, grapes, lemons). In history lessons the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans all traded and fought across the Mediterranean; the Romans called it «our sea». In everyday life, a «Mediterranean diet» means lots of vegetables, fish, olive oil and grains. In news, people fleeing war sometimes cross it in dangerous small boats.

examples

• We went on holiday to a beach on the Mediterranean. tree →
• Italy sticks out into the Mediterranean Sea like a boot. tree →
• Olives grow well in the Mediterranean climate. tree →
• The Romans sailed all around the Mediterranean. tree →
• Perth has a Mediterranean climate. tree →
• Doctors say the Mediterranean diet is healthy. tree →
• Many refugees have tried to cross the Mediterranean in small boats. tree →
• And then they flew across the Alps towards the blue Mediterranean. tree →

note

Always a capital M. Spelling trap: one «d», one «t» together with double «r»: «Med-i-ter-ran-e-an». Informal short form: «the Med». It is a sea, not an ocean, although it joins the Atlantic Ocean at Gibraltar.

In the corpora

• Connor hands in an essay about "the breathtaking vistas of the Mediterranean".
• Mediterranean tortoises hibernate, and owners guided by a vet keep them steady at about 5 degrees so they neither wake early nor freeze.
• From the late 1200s, sailors in the Mediterranean used portolan charts, sea maps with coastlines and criss-crossing compass lines.
• The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, is about 193 km long and joins the Mediterranean to the Red Sea without any locks.
• Constantinople, later called Istanbul, became the Ottoman capital and controlled the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «mediterranean» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.